Lagerstatten

The world's Laggerstatten (Lagerstätten or Lagerstaette) span some billion years of geological time, and comprise the most important portion of the fossil record for the understanding of evolution. The listing below of the world's major Lagerstätten begins with the oldest, the some billion year old Bitter Springs of Australia, and ends with the 20,000 year old La Brea Tar Pits near Los Angeles, California (USA). A Lagerstätte (also spelled Lagerstatte and Lagerstaette) is a fossil site exhibiting extraordinary preservation and often faunal or floral diversity. The word Lagerstaette translates from German as Lager and Stätte; literally meaning "place of storage"; the plural form is Lagerstätten).

Many of those on the list are famous, even to the lay public. The Burgess Shale located in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia is probably the most famous. The Burgess Shale (part of the Stephen Formation) was discovered by palaeontologist Charles Walcott in 1909, and since then has been a scientific window into the rapid diversification of life in the early Cambrian some 505 million years ago that is known as the Cambrian Explosion. More recently, the Chengjiang Maotianshan Shales, another Konservat Lagerstätte, has risen to scientific prominence. Located in Yunnan Province, China, Chengjiang and the extensive Chengjiang Biota predates the Burgess Shale by some 15 to 20 million years to between 525 and 520 million years ago in the middle of the early Cambrian.

We have excluded many of the famous dinosaur sites in the badlands of the US and elsewhere since fossils tend to be scattered over vast areas. We've also excluded fossil amber, because we feel fossil resin does not meet the proper definition of a Lagerstatte.

Earth's Laggerstatten:
Geological Time Period	Fossil Site Name	Age (millions of years ago)	Lagerstatte Site Location
Precambrian	Bitter Springs	1000-850	Southern Australia
	Ediacara Hills	700	Southern Australia
	Doushantuo Formation	600-555	Guizhou Province, China
	White Sea	550	Northwest Coast of Russia
Cambrian	Maotianshan shales or Chengjiang	525	Yunnan Province, China
	Emu Bay shale	525	Southern Australia
	Pioche Shale Formation	525-520	Nevada and Utah, USA
	Sirius Passet	518	Greenland
	Kaili Formation	513-501	Guizhou province, southwest China
	Wheeler Shale (House Range)	507	Western Utah, USA
	Burgess Shale	505	British Columbia, Canada
Ordovician	Walcott-Rust quarry	450	New York, USA
	Beecher's Trilobite Bed	445	New York, USA
Silurian	Wenlock Series	420	United Kingdom
Devonian	Rhynie chert	400	Scotland
	Hunsrück Slates or Bundenbach	390	Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany
Carboniferous	Bear Gulch Limestone	320	Montana, USA
	Mazon Creek	300	Illinois, USA
Jurassic	Holzmaden	180	Württemberg, Germany
	Solnhofen limestone	145	Bavaria, Germany
Cretaceous	Yixian Formation	135	Liaoning, China
	Crato Formation	117	Northeast Brazil
	Xiagou Formation	110	Gansu, China
	Santana Formation	108-92	Brazil
Eocene	Green River Formation	50	Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, USA
	Monte Bolca	49	Italy
	Messel Oil Shale	49	Hessen, Germany
Pleistocene	Rancho La Brea Tar Pits	.02	California, USA